kyethra

Since my pre band days I've been fond of soy crisps. For me they are an alternative to rice cakes. I've never been fond of rice cakes for a couple of reasons-- they taste bad and the nutritional facts stink. The soy crisps I get are made from genisoy. They don't taste great, but I think they are better than rice cakes anyway, not bad. Good crunchy wafer. What I really like them for is eating hummus. Or pesto. Or olive stuff. But Hummus plus soy crisps is always a favorite diet food of mine. And lately they have also been good for my tummy that can be unhappy at times.

I did not see this magazine, but a magazine I subscribe to, Shape, which I generally like, does run one or two little profiles every month of women who have lost a lot of weight- not necessary half their size though, and how they did it and how they are keeping it off. One thing I have noticed is that none of the women in the magazine have ever had WLS. Now I like the magazine in general because it tends to be motivating and focused on health. Maybe they don't feature women with WLS because the majority of readers wouldn't get or be that overweight? And they want it to apply to all readers, even those looking to shed only 5-10 pounds? I don't know. Either way, it does make me a little sad because feel that I'm being excluded somehow too. I wasn't good enough to lose weight "the old fashioned way" and now that I'm losing it, the way I am isn't good enough. Plus how many morbidly obese people even know what the lab band is? Or the verticle sleeve? I sure didn't until not that long ago. Everyone knows about the gastric bypass, and maybe even the DS. The extreme surgeries. How many of us decided that wasn't the answer? Then I read a brief news article that mentioned a lap band thing. So I looked it up because I was curious. That was about a year ago now. I think the whole "no surgery" think makes people less aware about options that are out there (I'm explaining the band to doctors and nurses all the time).

It would be nice if things that could contribute to weight gain were considered as well as things which can be improved by its loss. I had no problem getting approved- my BMI was 43 and I have hypertension and GERD. But I know there are conditons that are at least correlated with obesity (narcolepsy is one of those). While weight loss won't help those specific conditions it does help overall health and helps prevent more problems from occuring. I know hormonal issues might also be that way, etc. Seems like a bit of a catch 22.

Wow you guys are looking good! I am now starting to notice a different in myself. having my bottoms fall off helps this that. And tops seem bigger too. I've noticed my top belly roll of fat (you all know what I mean) is definitely shrinking. Wedding rings are getting looser too. When I have to get them sized down though I'm only doing one at a time because a naked finger would just way too wierd feeling. I want to lose 20-40 pounds by mid august (when classes start again). I think thats reasonable. DH and I went to McCalisters for lunch yesterday- its a sandwhich plate. I had my potatoe salad for lunch and then today for lunch I ate half of the veggie pita I ordered. I might have the other half for dinner. but I should get protein in.. hmm.. I can add roast beef! I should start tracking my food stats again. I want to make sure I am getting enough protein.

My insurance paid for me to have three sleep studies in a sixth month span. You could look into an autopap. That a CPAP where the pressure is adjusted automatically by the machine but is usually at least five. And it can tell you and your doc the data on apneas and hypopneas. So when those disapear you would know it!

LOL actually when I had my psych evalutation the psychologist asked me how long I thought it would take to lose the weight. I said I thought it would take a couple of years or so if I lost at an average of 2lbs per week. Well he told me not to be surprised if I lost a lot faster than that, that I just might reach goal in a year. I was thinking, of course "he doesn't know how slowly the weight comes off". Well he was right I guess. Two months out and down fifty pounds already- so now I'm thinking I just might lose it all in one year. Probably less than two years anyway.

I would ask about actigall. I lost 25% of my excess body weight in the first month and that was enough to cause the gall bladder to need to come out. I was shocked because 1) I didn't think 30 pounds was enough to trigger that many stones so it didn't function like it should and 2) I've never been a fast loser. The most I had ever lost before was 30 pounds and that had taken me months of hard work. At two months I had lost 40% of my excess weight. I always imagined the weight would come off slow and steady, but a bunch came off at once. You never know.

I got an A in my class this past semester. And since I got an A last semester too that means my graduate GPA is officialy a 4.0. Granted its only for 8 credit hours thus far and very light loads, but still, its a 4.0! I've never had one of those before. Nope, not even close. I think thats pretty good for a learning disabled narcolpetic esp considering we are still working out some of the narcolepsy treatments. I'm just super excited! I'm going to go full time in the fall. Lets see if I can keep it then! So far grad school is definitely my favorite.

Actually pick it up once and tell them to put you on their do not call list. This is different from the general no call list. request to be put on the company specific no call list. Or write to them requesting that or email or whatever. Every company has their own DNC list. Once you tell a tellemarketer that they also have to stop selling you whatever it is they want to sell you because you can't take someone off the list and make a sale at the same time. They will then likely have to read off a paragraph at ya and 1800 number. Or you can hang up. Just state very clearly that you want to be put on their do not call list first. I used to be a telemarketer. You wouldn't believe how mean/obscene/etc some people can be! Some people would ask me how I could do such a horrible job-- I told them the truth: it was the only job I could find where they let me keep my clothes on and I needed the money for school. A lot of times the reason they are so annoying and argue with you like three zillion times when you say no is because they are required to. We would have supervisors randomly listening in and if we didn't give the number of required rebuttals (arguments, etc) then you got fired. So try to remember your inner Ohm and think evil thoughts about the company and not the person on the other end unless of course they are rude.

I think that I would rather be a little overweight, or even just overweight than at a normal weight where I was constantly yo-yoing up and down in weight because that lighter weight was too difficult to maintain for me. But thats just me. I was also worried about health problems that would develope, could, and were developing. And yes, there is the gaining issue... Even if I only lost 60% of my excess weight I would be very happy. Thats a lot healthier, and smaller. And you have to remember this is sustainable weight loss-- its one of the reasons I chose the band anyway, so I could keep a healthy weight.

Well I have to say a couple of things 1) I'm pretty straight but I too am feeling very supportive and I think our country stinks for not allowing gay marriage, etc. Whats wrong with people! What does gender have to do with it! 2) On having kids. If you want to give birth to kids (that does provide more control over the prenatal environment...) there is embryo donation to look into. I think its likely that when DH and I decide to have a kid we might either do that or use donated eggs or something unless genetics is further advanced cause I could pass on some stuff that seriously sucky. The autism is the one I mostly worry about, but there are other issues too. I don't expect to have a normal child. I expect to have whatever child I have, be that child normal or disabled or gifted or both or something we haven't defined yet. But I worry about the kid-- for me I feel that I should do what I can to give the kid a blank slate to start from, an equal chance to not have disabling problems. FYI cause I know not everyone will agree with my POV on that. But I just wanted to share that there are more reproductive options.

Woohoo! Congrats!

Oh people are around. Different threads get busier or slower as times and current topics change and things come up. I was feely pretty lousy lately but I'm starting to feel more alive these days so I've been posting a bit more again. I've been thinking about pagan activities actually. So what fun, exciting, nude perhaps activities have I been thinking of? Sorting rocks. Yup thats a day in the life. I got a bunch of different stones from an online store I am fond of (I like their candle variety and general variety plus pricing). Now I have to figure out what is what and label them. What sort of container is good for sorting out small stones and labeling them? Saw my surgeon today for two minutes. Said nope, no fills would be needed here. Yesterday I ate half a burger (minus half the bun) and I PBed after! Its not the meat that did it-- I can eat beef and stuff just fine. I just took one or two bites too many. That old, just one more bite maybe mentality. So then of course I kept up the splendid eating habits. Had ice cream for dinner (oh it was so good). Then for lunch DH asked where I wanted to go/what I wanted. I said he could go where he wanted since all that sounded good to me happened to be potatoe salad and I wasn't very hungry. So he says ok, where do they have potatoe salad, could go to deli counter at store. I say don't bother. Then he is thinking, thinking... Decides that a new place in town McCalisters deli/sandwhich place might have potatoe salad so we go there. Then after nagging me forever ("Have you decided yet?" No! Be Quite and quit nagging me so I can think. Have you decided yet....") we ordered. I got some potatoe salad but since we were there I also ordered a veggie pita and some ice tea. So I ate my potatoe salad. That was a good satisfied full. I also had a tiny taste of DH's coleslaw and I have to admit it wasn't bad (normally I hate coleslaw). Then we got a box for my pita. I was saying that the serving cup for the potatoe salad looked pretty big to me, that I thought it was about 1 cup. DH looks at my container and turns it over- 5oz. I'm not quite used to eating the way I eat yet. I know that I don't eat much (well if I eat the right things usually), but I still order a full meal. And then I'm shocked when they bring me so much food. And I look around me at other people lots of food and I know it really is just me cause everyone is eating and no one is huge. And I'm always surprised I get full so fast-- sometimes that gets me in trouble. Half a hamburger! I can't be full! But I was and overfull. To our surprise and delight peonies we planted last year are blooming this year! Yah! for peonies! I love those things. The ones we have now are purple with cream/white in the middle. I want some pink ones and white ones. There is something about peonies that makes me feel incredibly girly and I don't know what. Like I should I have a 20 inch waist (yeah right) and be strolling in a white linen dress with a parosol while we drink lemonade and play cricket perhaps. And no I don't know where I got that from. Yes I do. The drowning tree. It was good, but it got tennyson stuck in my head and all sorts of romanticish imagry too. And then this reminds me of something I've never understood. Why did all those nymphs et al want to be transformed into something instead of just having sex with a god? I would think that the sex with a god would be pretty damn good. Oh maybe that was the problem! Maybe these guys had a bad reputation for getting done early or something. Who knows.

I read studies about it too before being banded. We are looking at two or three years here (after I get done with grad school), but it was always a thought.

my mom sort of flipped out after I got engaged. DH and I got married in Vegas- small ceremony but very nice and with all the trimming and then a reception in the city we live in. While I had looked at a couple of venues for the reception in my hometown area (including my mom's house) we ended up decided it made the most sense financially and to us to have it where we live (about three hours from either of our families so not that far). We planned it. I tried to involve my mother- like I had her go wedding dress shopping with me, and I would send her pictures of things. That was sort of akward because she kept telling the clerks that they shouldn't me anything too fancy since I was just getting married in vegas and things like that (she was sort of bitter) and that made people a little uncomfortable. She wasn't paying for anything. But lots of anger (she told me not to call her for the days between the wedding and the reception) I think the only way I would have made her happy was if we did it all exactly like she wanted, but then we wouldn't have been happy. I loved my wedding and i love being married (my one year anniversary is in august), but it sure is a stressfull time for everyone involved. I'm glad its something that is past though :eek: Maybe the two of you could rent some wedding themed movied and watch those together to blow off steam? Wedding planner is one that I like. Now I'm working on trying to find money for the big honeymoon we can't afford.

Looking good and fitting in clothes at all sorts of stores so that when I hang out with my good friends ( they are a size 4) I can look at clothes wherever and tell my husband how hot his wife is (ok sometimes I do this last one now, I don't exactly suffer from low self esteem).

food and weight and BMI and things of that nature. Back when I was 16 and weighed 180 I thought I had to lose 60 pounds-- that seemed like a lot of weight to me. How was I ever going to get down to 130, let alone 120? Little did I know that if I had been able to lose 20 or 30 pounds I probably would have been pretty hot and I wasn't nearly as fat as I thought I was. Teenagers never are. Now when I watch tv or a movie, I often want to feed the actresses (and some actors too). I look at their thin upper arms and protuding collar bones and I think of sending them Cookies. And they say the camera adds weight! The other day I watched sleeping with the enemy, an older julia roberts film, on tivo. I was curious so I googled her stats. They came up as 5'10" and 123 pounds. Now I have no idea if that was accurate or not. But wow, thats so thin! Then a magazine I get recently had tyra banks on the cover and they had an interview with her about body acceptance and she was in a bikini (of course I'm sure the picture was airbrushed). Her height was about the same. Her weight, however, was 161 pounds I think. Thats actually a normal BMI! So I think normal BMI models are a good idea. It helps teens set reasonable goals and not so feel so bad when comparing stats.

yeah I wouldn't be messing with the blood sugar like that... Low blood sugar is scarey and the cycle is awful. While I haven't seen that show I do occasionally see bits and pieces of her show. Recently she was on the cover a magazine I get (tyra banks, not the church lady). She has been doing a lot of body acceptance stuff lately though which is a good thing. She actual has a normal BMI, unlike most famous women. I suppose that whole issue is another thread though.

One thing my wonderful husband does that makes me want to call in professional help or a tv show or somebody or something is the way he makes a mess. I will clean something off, like say the couch or the entertainment center. After I have cleaned it off I will talk to him and explain how it is organized and how it needs to stay clean and that he needs to find another place to put all his stuff and I don't care if his office is full of junk because he can clean that and put stuff in there. I tell him it is important to me that he keeps things clean. I make him promise he will keep things clean. Does he keep things clean? Nope. Pretty soon there will be all sorts of mess like papers all over the couch or the entertainment center along with his excuses. That makes me want to go all radioactive and flame-like like that one guy on hereos. I dream of hurting him when he does that. When I explained that to him I think he started to understand, and now he says he's going to clean up this or that. Of course his plans for cleaning up aren't actually plans for cleaning up. His plans for cleaning up involve contrustion projects that will somehow enable him in some roundabout way to clean up. Yeesh. Bring on the ninjas.

Its a good idea to sip rather than gulp I feel. But once the swelling goes down you can do some guling if needed (like if you are hot afer a walk outside). I actually use straws and always have even though I know a lot of people don't like them. They help me to sip rather than gulp for one thing and they also help me to get the liquid in my mouth rather than on my blouse.

Hi all. Well I haven't weighed myself latley, will probably do so tomorrow. I also haven't been keeping track of calories the past few days because I wanted to focus more on eating and getting food and stuff in me and just resting and healing. But I am starting to feel better! I don't think that counts as a NSV since it isn't really related to weight loss directly, but I'm sure happy about it. A couple of days ago I had some chopped beef brisquet for dinner. It was yummy. Then when DH was eyeing my left overs (I always have plenty these days) I told him not to touch them cause that was going to be dinner for the next day. So he started mumbling about how he needs to start ordering more so he will have left overs too. The past couple of days I've been on a cold cereal kick for some reason. It just sounded really good. So I ate some cap n crunch. Then I remembered I had some healthier stuff like grape nuts and kashi. And cold cereal goes down well! I can eat a whole bowl of that stuff. I was surprised because once I wasn't even full after eating a bowl. Shocked is more like it. So I was thinking to myself that maybe I was starting to lose some of my restriction since it seemed like I was eating more of stuff. Then today for lunch I decided to have a burger- a fastfood one since DH picked one up (he worked from home yesterday so he gets to be a bum today I guess). I got a angus burger for burger king, with cheese, but no mayo. Took the top bun off because all that bread is just too filling. So I ate half the burger (no fries- I don't have room for fries!) and then massive PB, evil golfball feeling. Even half a burger with just half a bun was too much I guess. So I suppose my restriction is still pretty good. Cold cereal and stuff like that just slide on down apparently! So I guess I should stick to my oatmeal-- that stuff is sticky. Eitherway right now I am not that concerned about gaining a few pounds. I know that sounds strange and I don't want to gain weight in general, but I feel that I need to focus on just healing now and getting better and making sure I eat. (sometimes its easier to not eat esp if I wait too long and then I feel nauseated and won't want too, etc) Then once I feel stronger and so forth I get back in the saddle, so to speak and refocus on the specifics of the foods and calories. I'd just been feeling so very tired rundown sick plus I feel like I've had great weight loss so right now the numbers aren't my focus. I am sorting through some old clothes I have though- keep, give away, throw out. The keep clothes I am then going to sort by size so when I do go down a size I can just go to the right pile instead of having to sort through all of them. My size 22 jeans are just too big on me! I can take them off without unfastening them! That is a good NSV I think. I hope everyone else is doing well! Keep up the good work!

I was misdiagnosed as having apnea before (I don't have it). What I understand is that even if you still are stuck with the machine you might be able to have a lower pressure after weight loss. You can ask your doc about an autopap- that will adjust the pressure based on how you breath and typically also results in lower pressure than traditional CPAP.

mention the joint problems! If you need to see doc for those, then do that. Lower body joint issues and back problems are related to weight. Doctors have certainly told me enough times to lose weight for my fibro and my occasional lower back problems. Also, some people might wear weights when they go in the future to be weighed (a few rolls of quarters in the bra, a weight in the pocket of cargo pants, etc). Not that you should do this, I'm just saying, I've heard of this... Plus the menstrual stuff might be. Hypertension is definitely a comorbidity. Its one of mine. I also have reflux that I will always have, but it is worsened by weight. And I do think they look at family history and everything really. I was asked about that. So I explained that before my dad had cancer he was over 300 pounds and loved dairy queen (one of my earliest memories is eating ice cream with him in the middle of the night. I love dairy queen too). And that my mother was morbidly obese but when I was on college she lost 120 pounds with weight watchers and kept it off. I tried weight watchers and it drove me crazy, etc. She is hungry all the time, sort of obcessed with food I think. She says you get used to always being hungry. I don't think I can live like that-- I think that would just drive me crazy since I've tried so many diets that were like that and those didn't work because I was hungry. For me this was a big point of concern, as was future health. Everyone listened.

I actually gained a couple of pounds in the first few days post op due to swelling. At first this surprised seeing as clear liquids wasn't many calories... Once the swelling went down the scale sort of jumped. Two months out I'm down about fifty pounds. Once the scale started to move it really moved-- so don't be discouraged. Just focus on healing and walk when you can and watch the sodium and get in tons of protein. Then after you are all healed if you still aren't losing you can see if you are adequately restricted and so forth.

I tend to fall asleep on my back and wake up on my side. I use an autopap because a medication I am on decreases my breathing, so I have to use it if I take that (its a very strong hypnotic). I can't sleep on my stomach with it though. but I was sleeping on my tummy without the autopap a week after the surgery. You might want to take your CPAP to the hospital with you. I heard that they put apnea patients on one of theirs sometimes.